Family and Education

b. 20 Nov. 1702, 1st s. of Thomas Andrews of Highgate, Mdx. by Sarah, da. and h. of John Townsend of Highgate, citizen and soapmaker of London. educ. Merchant Taylors’ 1717; Clare, Camb. 1718; I. Temple 1718. m. bef. 1731, Catherine, da. of Thomas Gibson. suc. fa. bef. Nov. 1721 and to Tytherton Lucas and other Wilts. estates of his maternal gd.-fa. John Townsend 1725.1

Offices Held

Dep. paymaster of the forces by 1727-d.

Biography

After a hotly contested election, Andrews was returned as a government supporter for Hindon against Henry Fox. On 13 Jan. 1730 he seconded the Address in a ‘studied’ but ‘fluent’ speech. In the absence of Sir William Strickland, the secretary at war, he introduced the army estimates, 2 Feb. 1733, defending them on the ground, inter alia, that ‘the Pretender, however low his interest may seem, has partisans still among us and that the people have been poisoned by libels and artifice to be discontented with the Government’. Introducing them again, 6 Feb. 1734, he observed that ‘by the employment I have the honour to be in it naturally falls within my province’ to do so. When he moved them in 1735 and seconded the secretary at war who introduced them in 1737, the 1st Lord Egmont refers to him as ‘deputy secretary at war’.2 Transferred in 1734 to Bossiney, to make room for Fox at Hindon,3 he died 6 May 1737.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: R. S. Lea

Notes

• 1. PCC 52 Romney; Wilts. N. & Q. i. 426; vi. 176.
• 2. HMC Egmont Diary, i. 3, 313-14; ii. 150, 350; Parl. Hist. ix. 262.
• 3. Ilchester, Lord Hervey and his Friends, 173.